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Questions and Answers - The Stick of Ephraim

TitleQuestions and Answers - The Stick of Ephraim
Publication TypeMagazine Article
Year of Publication1905
AuthorsSmith, Joseph F.
MagazineImprovement Era
Volume8
Issue Number10
Pagination781-782
Date PublishedAugust 1905
Type of ArticleQuestions and Answers
KeywordsEphraim (Tribe); Ishmael; Lehi (Prophet); Lost 116 Pages; Manasseh (Tribe); Prophecy; Stick of Ephraim

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The Stick of Ephraim

Why is the Book of Mormon called the Stick of Ephraim, when it is understood to have been written by the descendents of Lehi who was a descendant of Manasseh?

(See Ezekiel 37:16; Doctrine and Covenants Sec. 27:5).

 The Book of Mormon refers to Lehi's colony as made up of descendants of Manasseh and Ephraim. Lehi was a descendant of Manasseh, and Ishmael, of Ephraim. In the Manual for 1903-4, (page 95) it is shown that there are promises in the Hebrew scriptures respecting Ephraim, which cannot be realized, so far as we know, except through the seed of Ephraim dwelling upon the land of America. Since Lehi was of Manasseh, and Mulek's colony were Jews, it leaves Ishmael alone to introduce the descendants of Ephraim into the western world. The intermarriage of the families of Lehi and Ishmael effectually accomplished this. President Franklin D. Richards, and other Latter-day Saints acquainted with the Prophet Joseph, have declared, to this writer's personal knowledge, that in conversation they had known him to say that in Mormon's abridgement of the book of Lehi, (which supplied the 116 pages of manuscript lost by Martin Harris) it was plainly stated that Ishmael was of the tribe of Ephraim. Let it also be remembered that in  Ezekiel 37:19, it is called the "stick of Joseph, which is in the hands of Ephraim," showing that both Ephraim and Manasseh the sons of Joseph, are included, and that the book was to be in the hands of Ephraim, at its coming forth. It is well known, through patriarchal blessings, that many of the Latter-day Saints, in whose hands is the stick, are of Ephraim. (See also chapter 35, pp. 329-338; and chapter 39 p. 375, of the Manual for 1905-6).

 

Scripture Reference

Ezekiel 37:16
Doctrine and Covenants 27:5